[smackfu]

When you get used to something like Venmo, and a critical mass of friends are using it, it's amazing how effortless it is. Take a cab somewhere, one person pays with their credit card, the other people settle up in the next 30 seconds. Done.

[fragmede]

It's the critical mass of friend's that key though. Hell, Paypal is just as effortless once that critical mass is hit, and that's has been around since 1998.

[yincrash]

Paypal's UX has changed to be simpler, but I don't think they even had a mobile app for the longest time. It was also several inputs, such as choosing the type of transaction to make sure you don't get charged a fee for sending money to your friend.

I'm not going to go home and remember to paypal on my desktop when I could just use the venmo app to send you money right after you paid.

[smackfu]

Plus PayPal has the friction of forcing you to log in. Which many of these other sites skip.

[dragonwriter]

Square Cash has pretty much no friction, even without other people actively using it, because recipients don't need to create an account.